There Will Your Heart Be
by LauraHuntORI
Summary: Speculation on the nature of family, inspired by Season 2, episode 1: The Lost Treasure.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** _"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." _–Luke 12:34, Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

He should have known it was too good to be true.

Heath had been so happy with the Barkleys, happier than he'd ever been. He'd no longer needed to drift, to seek… he had arrived, been found.

The Barkleys had given him so much more than he could ever have asked for, so much more than he deserved. They had, in fact, given him everything he'd ever wanted: a place to belong, and people he belonged to.

…but, as it turned out, they weren't his.

And he could not stay where he didn't belong.

Nick hadn't understood, and Audra hadn't known what to say, Heath reckoned, any more than their would-be brother did himself.

Jarrod, Lord love him, had thought it was just the name. "If it's the name you're worried about, I can make that as legal as any birth certificate." If Heath's heart hadn't already been shattered, that would have broken it, that offer of a love and acceptance he had no right to.

If only it were that easy.

But it wasn't. He wished it were. He wished… but no amount of wishing on Heath's part could make him a part of this family he loved. He should go. Had to go.

Mother didn't agree, and she was angry, in her way as angry as Nick had been. "You can leave, Heath," she'd scolded hotly. "Oh, you can leave, but that won't change a thing, because no matter where you go, no matter what you do, no matter what you call yourself, you'll still be _my son!_"

"I'll always want to be," he replied.

Then he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **_"Go West, young man; go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles." _

_"That," I said, "is very frank advice, but it is medicine easier given than taken. It is a wide country, but I do not know just where to go." _

–Men and Events of Forty Years, Josiah Bushnell Grinnell

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

Leah herself could not have explained what made her say it. The devil, perhaps, or a wish to meet their parting with anger rather than tears.

Her lips curved sardonically. "My Heathcliff, off to make his fortune in the world."

"That's not my name," her son snapped semi-automatically, as she'd known he would.

"I know what your name is, Heath Barkley, I'm the one gave it to you."

He claimed he hated the name because the character 'wasn't a good man,' but Leah wasn't fooled: he'd wept inconsolably the night she'd read to him about the orphaned boy's disastrous Christmas Day near the book's beginning. It was years ago now, but she'd never forget it. He'd been completely distraught.

He was glowering at her. "It's foolish to name a boy out of a book like that."

"A name has to come from somewhere."

Fact to business, she thought just plain 'heath' suited him better anyway: like the rich chaparral woodlands that needed fire to renew themselves; actually requiring that harshness for their growth, like a rosebush needs pruning. She chuckled. _Or it'll become leggy and overgrown, just like her son. _He was taller than she was now, and stronger, his wildness no longer within either her ability or her desire to control.

Best he should go, perhaps.

"Some boys are named for their fathers," Heath remarked quietly.

She looked at her golden son and imagined him with his full growth. He would _look _like Tom Barkley, she thought.

"I've given you your father's name," she reminded him.

Like he could forget. His father's surname, anyway. And why had she?

He'd asked her once, when he was much younger, after some miner had asked him, why she hadn't just pretended he was legitimate, that she was his father's widow.

She'd slapped him, and told him she wasn't a liar and wasn't raising a liar.

He wished he hadn't thought of that just now.

"Well, l've no objection to your going." She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek, still smooth despite his leggy height. "Make sure you take enough food to get there, you hear? It must be two days ride."

"Three, the man said." Heath agreed, voice gravelly with suppressed emotion.

_He's so brave_, she thought fondly. "And if it doesn't work out, and you want to come home, you do it, you hear? Don't let pride keep you away." She smiled affectionately, and gently touched the tip of her index finger to the tip of his nose, a loving gesture that never failed to comfort him.

"I won't," he smiled back.

"There's no shame in, even if you was to decide you wanted to come back today."

Heath laughed. "Let's hope the job lasts longer than that."

"You're always welcome at home."

"I know." He hugged her, and the strength of the arms squeezing her said what Heath himself had no words to say.

* * *

Rachel Caulfield was horrified when she heard. "What do you mean he _left?_"

"He got a job," his mother explained.

"Leah, he's a boy."

Her friend shrugged. "He's near grown."

"Near grown?" Rachel repeated, mouth agape. "He's only _twelve!_"

Cerulean blue eyes rounded at her. "I got married at twelve," Leah said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **_"__I think it is lost...but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost….the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again." _―Walt Whitman

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

The boys had found it difficult, but for Victoria Barkley nothing had been easier to believe. For she had awoken to the sound of her husband's voice.

_'Oh, Tom,'_ she'd thought, lovingly exasperated, still in that hazy place between sleep and waking, _'What are you yelling about now?'_

But when she'd gotten to her feet, and put on a robe, she looked in the glass and saw she'd grown old.

Of course, she'd been dreaming. Tom was dead, she hadn't heard his voice; she couldn't have.

_There it was again! Coming from downstairs! _

Not his mature, older man's voice, roughened with whisky and darkened with age, but his _young_ voice…_ who was down there? _

Utterly compelled, Victoria eased the door open, and emerged onto the stairs. Further down towards the study, Audra stood listening avidly.

The women could not hear everything the men said, but they heard enough.

_Oh, my God!_

Strawberry.

Victoria closed her eyes. Heard again the low murmur of the voice so like that of the man she'd loved. _Oh, Tom! What did you do?!_

The boys didn't seek out her opinion, just sent the young man on his way with a flea in his ear, but as he crossed the hall on his way out, she caught a glimpse of the back of a golden head, on a body that might well have been her husband's thirty-some years before.

Victoria was back in her room before the young man had closed the front door behind him.

* * *

It would not be the last she'd see of him that night, however, for before one o'clock in the morning she and he and Audra and the sheriff had joined everyone else at Swinson's burning homestead, and Victoria discovered the young man's face was as astonishingly like Tom's as his voice and body had been.

It spooked her, to listen to Sample declare that he would fight the encroachment of the railroad, and to see the ghost of her husband there, astride a horse, as dismayed as she was at their sons' refusal to support their neighbor in the cause for which Tom had given his life. He stared at her, at Sample, at his sons. Finally, he rode away in disgust.

That was the most painful thing of all. _Tom, give them a minute, let them think it through. _She stared at Jarrod, willing him to fight, _to try. _Then they all moved in towards Sample, supporting him, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She looked around, but of course the young man had gone.

* * *

Victoria was the first back to the house. She saw the horse outside and thought, _he's here. _

Sure enough, the young man emerged from the study. He saw the fruit bowl, and helped himself, removing his hat to fill it with the fruit, even after he'd seen her standing there.

The young man said nothing, and would have walked past her and out, but she stopped him by speaking. "He was an imperfect man, my husband," she began, "and in so many ways that could hurt."

The young man paused silently to listen to her, his hat full of fruit in his hand.

Standing this close to him, mere inches away, his resemblance to her late husband in his youth was overpowering, as though Tom were alive again, silent and intent on her every word. He smelled of whisky, and of horses, and of the smoke from Swinson's burning homestead.

_This is Tom's son! _

For the first time in years, she knew true jealousy. Tom had no need of another son, but _she_ did! The boys would think she was insane, it did not seem rational even to her, but _she wanted him to stay! Wanted him to be __**her **__son! To fight for their neighbors against the railroad with the rest of her sons. _

The young man heard her out politely as she continued to harangue him, assuring him that the boys really had followed their father's teaching, and that he should, too, if he wished to be one of them. _Please let him want that._ The strength of her desire made her want to weep. Finally, she finished, "That's what I would say to you, if you were _my _son."

He said nothing, moved to go, then paused again for a moment, brow creased, but still mute.

Then he was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **_"I know not how to tell thee who I am: My name… is hateful to myself." –_Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, William Shakespeare

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

_A Barkley is a Barkley and a Sawyer is a Sawyer. _

Well, not exactly.

Had Heath suddenly discovered that _Frank_ Sawyer, the sheriff over to Spanish Camp, was his father, things would have been entirely different. Frank was a good man, always treated him fair, and had taught him to be a deputy real fine. He'd have been proud to be a Sawyer if Frank were his father. Any man would be.

Heath inhabited this alternate reality for a moment, and it eased him somewhat. Frank had been almost like a father to him anyway; he'd have been happy to go and work with Frank again, wasn't he the sheriff of Jubilee now? It would be wonderful, in fact, to have a father who was still alive, and maybe he'd get to know his brother Chad that Frank had talked so much about, if the boy's mother'd ever seen fit to bring him back from Boston.

Suddenly, he missed his own Mother intensely, even though he'd left her mere minutes before. He missed Nick and Jarrod, Audra and Eugene. And Silas. What would he do without Silas?

If Frank had been his father, maybe he wouldn't have needed to leave. Maybe he could have stayed with the Barkleys as a foreman, perhaps; he worked well under Nick.

It would be strange to be there and not be a member of the family.

All right, maybe that wouldn't have done, but at least he could have visited them sometimes, or written.

He wished Frank _were_ his father.

_If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, _his mother had always said when he'd wished for anything as a boy.

Wishes were not horses.

And it was not Frank the lawman who was his father, but Charlie the con man.

Heath felt soiled by the whole business.

* * *

He remembered a night when Jarrod and Eugene had been talking about some Greek fella in a play, a king who all unknowing, had ended up fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. When the truth came out, Eugene told him, the Greek fella had been so upset by what he'd done that he'd blinded himself with a brooch.

Heath had pronounced the story ridiculous: the king and queen who'd raised this fella had sworn up and down they were his real folks. How could he have known any different? So it wasn't his fault. He'd no call to go blaming himself.

"You might think differently if it were you," Jarrod had said.

Heath had scoffed, but Jarrod had been absolutely right.

Old Charlie had schemed to scam Tom Barkley, he'd scammed Heath's mother, had stated or implied that she had known about and been a party to the scamming of Tom Barkley (an idea absolutely repugnant to Heath, because it gave the lie to everything he remembered about his mother), and somehow, in Heath's mind anyway, Charlie Sawyer being his father meant that _Heath himself _had been scamming the Barkleys for over a year! It didn't matter that he himself had believed his scam. It was still despicable. And so was he.

These thoughts unhinged Heath a little. Had a brooch been part of a cowman's attire, he might well have blinded himself.

* * *

He remembered the day he'd first come to Stockton, and how he and the Modoc had beaten the train. Jarrod had mentioned in passing that Heath had already earned his keep (as a ranch hand at least) for the next ten years. When Mother heard the explanation of what Jarrod meant by the remark, she'd been appalled.

"Heath, how could you do something so foolish and dangerous?"

He'd been at a loss what to say to her. Usually, no one cared what he did.

No longer. Every Barkley eye in the room was focused on the family's newest member. All other talk ceased.

"When I ask you a question, Heath, I expect an answer." Mother's stern reminder rang out.

He'd licked his lips, trying to figure out a way to explain something he'd never before had occasion to try to express in words. "Sometimes… sometimes, when I'm feeling bad, if I do something difficult, or dangerous, it… it makes me feel better."

It was clear from her disapproving expression she had no idea what he meant.

He tried again. "It's kind of like… when you're in a fight (he thought of the way his hands had shaken after the gunfight at Sample's farm; he hadn't even been able to roll a smoke), or drinking your whisky too fast, or mak— or falling in love." Making love, he'd almost said, before remembering who he was talking to.

He wished there were a train handy now to race, to throw himself in front of. With any luck, this time the train would win.

* * *

The sign that showed the way to the Barkley Ranch was knocked crooked. Heath stepped down to straighten it. Then he heard gunshots.

When he saw the result of the shots, there was only one thought in his mind: _I've gotta get him home._

* * *

The sound of his horse's hooves brought Nick and Jarrod out onto the drive.

Despite the presence of the wounded man, Nick's amusement was plain. "Something for you?" he inquired.

"He's been shot," Heath explained.

Mother and Audra were at the door. "Bring him inside."

As his two brothers helped Charlie Sawyer into the house, Nick called, "How long were you gone, Heath? An hour?" Not even. Nick shook his head, and smiled at his sister, who was the only person left standing there. "I knew he'd be back with his tail between his legs as soon as he got in trouble," he told her. "I just didn't think it would be this soon."

The blonde girl smiled. "I'm glad it was." She frowned towards the door. "Though I hope Mr. Sawyer will be all right."

Well, it might not be a bucket of sand, Nick thought in relief, but perhaps it would succeed in bringing his brother to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** _ "__It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." –_ Luke 15:32, Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

"Well," Jarrod remarked to his mother, when it was over, and they were alone for a moment, "at least the old reprobate had the grace to reveal the truth before packing it in."

"That he wished Heath really had been his son?" she smiled. "Yes, I think that was the truth."

Jarrod laughed at her intentional misconstruing of his sentence. "A sentiment with which you can sympathize, I take it?" he teased.

"No, I'm afraid I can't."

"You can't?" he repeated in surprise.

"I've no need to wish that."

"Oh, no?" Disbelief was audible in Jarrod's voice. He knew how she felt about Heath.

"No." She grinned, pleased by his confusion. She paused a moment to add dramatic emphasis before explaining: "Heath _is _my son."

* * *

"What do you think, Pappy? Does an hour's absence justify our killing the fatted calf?"

"You tell me, Brother Nick. Do you feel like celebrating?"

Nick's black head shook, but it wasn't a negative shake, for a smile filled the brown eyes. "What an idiot."

"Just be glad he's still our idiot."

* * *

For all her relief at her son's return during the day, when night fell Victoria Barkley couldn't sleep.

She should have been happy, but she wasn't. Heath was home, and safe, and ensconced once more in the bosom of his family, but… the weight on her heart had not lifted.

What would have happened, she couldn't help wondering, if Sawyer hadn't confessed? What if he'd died while Heath still thought he was the man's son?

* * *

"That was quick," Nick had commented upon learning that all was resolved, but Victoria sensed he'd been pleased at the way things turned out. He'd certainly had no desire to lose his right-hand man. And for Nick, she thought, that was enough. Heath had behaved stupidly in leaving, then quickly come to his senses and returned; so quickly, in fact, that the total amount of inconvenience he'd caused his fiery older brother had been minimal. Sawyer had lied, then confessed the truth. And that had fixed everything. Simple. Everything had gone back to the way it was before.

Hadn't it?

Well, hadn't it?

She gave up on sleep and rose. Perhaps some warm milk.

* * *

Heath was before her, seated at the kitchen table with a mug, a pan of milk fragrant with nutmeg set carefully on the far right corner of the cookstove in the area furthest from the firebox where it wouldn't boil over.

She nodded towards the pan of milk. "Is there enough there for two?"

He nodded, then rose to serve her. She seated herself across the table from the chair he'd occupied, and watched him silently while he fetched another mug from the cupboard and filled it from the pan on the stove.

She had been so afraid… and, truth be told, she was still afraid.

"Trouble sleeping?" The returned prodigal asked, sliding the mug in front of her before seating himself again.

"Yes."

"Well, that should fix you up."

She raised the mug, and tasted not only nutmeg and sugar, but brandy and rum. He must be in Silas' good books, if he'd been given access to Silas' precious stock of rum.

"I wonder if you'd answer a question for me?" she asked.

"If I can," he agreed quietly.

"Suppose…" she hesitated, but he was attending to her respectfully, like a dutiful son. She took a breath. "Suppose Mr. Sawyer _hadn't _confessed. Suppose he'd died while you still thought you were his son."

He blinked, imagining it obediently. He took a sip from his mug to give himself a moment, then licked milk from his lip. "All right. What's your question?"

"If you still thought you weren't Tom Barkley's son, would you still be here tonight?"

His silence lasted so long she thought he wouldn't answer.

Then he did.

"No," her son told her. "I wouldn't be."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Action resumes immediately.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.

* * *

Victoria took a big swig of the milk punch, feeling the way she had the day the pasture gate had slammed into her breastbone: breathless and panicked. _ It doesn't matter_, she told herself. _It hadn't happened that way, Sawyer _had _conf—_

"Unless…" Heath continued, hesitating.

Out of her mental darkness, hope flared. "Unless?" she prompted eagerly.

"Unless Nick had been kind enough to keep me on."

_Nick._ For a moment, she was utterly baffled. _What did Nick have to do wit—_

Then she _knew_.

Righteous indignation filled her to overflowing, and she loosed her 'mother says' voice on him. "Do you mean to tell me you'd have wanted to stay on here as a **_ranch hand?!_**"

"It's the only way I could." His voice was even, as though it didn't matter to him that he was saying these hurtful things to her, but the wide blue eyes begged her to understand.

She didn't. "I suppose you'd have insisted on moving out to the bunkhouse, too!" she demanded.

"I'm afraid so."

"Heath Barkley, that it is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!" she yelled.

"Are you two trying to wake Mr. Sawyer, Mother?" Nick wondered cheerfully, strolling into the kitchen, resplendent in a dressing gown of Chinese silk.

"No," she snapped. Another time, Victoria might have scolded him for his lack of respect for the dead, since Mr. Sawyer's body was still laid out upstairs on Heath's bed awaiting burial. But right at the moment, she wasn't sure how much respect the Irishman had a right to after creating this mess. "Just having a little heart-to-heart with Heath here about his place in the family." Her eyes narrowed. "Perhaps you can help us, Nicholas."

Nick frowned. "I thought that matter was settled. Sawyer admitted he wasn't Heath's father. Why are we still talking about this?"

Mother forced out a breath in an effort to vent some of her anger. "Mr. Sawyer's little scheme may not have worked, but there is a confidence man on every corner in this world, Nicholas, and I want to have confidence that we aren't going to need to lock Heath in the springhouse every time a traveling salesman stops by peddling cure-all elixirs or over-priced anvils lest something in his pitch leads your brother here to believe he may not be a Barkley!"

Personally, Nick thought a good belting would do Heath more good than any amount of talk, but he supposed Mother would disagree. Accordingly, he joined them by grasping the back of the nearest unoccupied kitchen chair, swinging it into position, and straddling it. "All right," he agreed. "Shoot."

* * *

Heath had finally lost his own temper. "Are you saying you'd have let me in here that day if I _hadn't _been Tom Barkley's son?"

"_If _you recall, we _didn't _let you in here because of that. Jarrod insisted we hire you because you won him a sizable bet by beating that train."

Mother bristled at that, and Heath, too, tried to break in, but Nick had the floor, and he wasn't recognizing any other speakers until such time as it so suited him. "Once I beat out of you your _real _reason for being here, Mr. I-Didn't-Lie-to-You-That-Day, we promptly threw you out!"

Heath's glance slid from Nick to Mother. "But you let me come back, and you asked me to stay."

His question was directed at Mother, but the answer came from Nick. "_After_ your eleventh hour arrival at Sample's farm, we realized you needed a keeper."

Heath thought about that for a moment, but he knew it wasn't the reason. Not the real reason, at least. A lot of men had fought with them at Sample's farm. They hadn't brought the others home. "Mother?" Heath asked.

Victoria sighed, sorry to admit a point against her own case. "You greatly resemble your father. I used to think Eugene looked like Tom, but compared to you? He doesn't look like Tom _at all._"

"You see?" Heath's I-told-you-so was respectfully muted, but unmistakable. They had not convinced him.

And Victoria had no more arguments left.

Fortunately, Nick did. "It's you who doesn't see, little brother."

One skeptical golden eyebrow rose. "How's that?"

"When you rode in here a year ago, you were a stranger. We didn't know you from Adam's off ox, so you needed to be Tom Barkley's son in order get a foothold here."

Nick the orator rose to better ensure his voice filled the entire kitchen. "But by the time Charlie Sawyer rode in here, you had become a valued member of this family. And we don't value you for who your father was. We value you _for who you are._"

"Hear, hear," Jarrod said from the door, where he and Audra stood peeking in, drawn to the scene by the raised voices.

"You see?" Mother smiled in satisfaction. "The only person in this house Mr. Sawyer conned was you, Heath. You _were _Tom's son, yes, but now you're _mine_. And that won't change, 'no matter whatever.'" Heath might not recognize the quote, but she knew the others would.

Heath looked from her to each of his beaming siblings in turn and the knot of worry that had kept him from sleep began to unravel. "Yeah, I think I am starting to see that."

"Well," Nick offered, "as a very wise man once said, "'Guess it sometimes takes a while, but eventually the Barkleys get around to seeing eye to eye with one another.'"

As the family left the kitchen together to return to their beds, Audra touched Heath's arm. "It was foolish of you to think we were in any danger of being taken in by Mr. Sawyer."

Heath smiled at her affectionately. "Why is that, little sister?"

She shrugged as if the answer were obvious. "Because the Barkley's lost treasure was found and reclaimed a long time ago."

"Is that right?"_ It wasn't a story he'd ever heard, but _"Boy howdy, that must have made you glad."

"It sure did," she agreed, "It was lost for nearly a quarter century, and I don't know how we ever managed without it."

He stopped. "What treasure are you talking about, Audra?"

His sister grinned. "You."


End file.
